The Porsche TLG should have released - flawless, full featured and easy to build - a write up

[Kumbbl]

I’m not sure if this deserves an own topic because there is already the MODs and improvements-topic for the 42056 Porsche (http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/133743-42056-porsche-911-gt3-rs-mods-and-improvements/). But because that topic is after almost 30 pages quite cluttered and from time to time always the same complaints and questions about the flaws of 42056 came up I thought I could be worth to make a write up about a Porsche-package which is

• flawless
• full featured
• easy to rebuild
• preserving 100% the really gorgeous looks of the stock model
• moderate in additional costs
• based onto the incredible valuable work of @Didumos69 and its unofficial errata and some other MODs made by him

Feature summary:

If you apply all MODs listed below then you will get a Porsche with:

• Smooth and full working gear-train for a freely pushable car in all gears with and 100% reliable gear-shifting, no gearbox stalls anymore, correct gear sequence, no endless shifting
• Gear indicator at the dashboard for checking gear-state at a glance
• Realistic reverse-mode behavior of the center gear-mode-stick which prevents from engaging reverse-mode from all gears but first gear
• A new paddle-shifter module which has better and more realistic looks and slightly lighter operation
• Much better front-axle layout with strong enough suspension for the weight, preserved ground clearance, better geometry, less bump steer, better steering lock and ackerman steering
• A more rigid chassis which does not bent even without body
• A Hand of Good (HoG) for easy steering which results in much better playablity
• Very fast and easy removable (and of course attachable) bodyby just pulling (rsp. pushing) 11 red pins with bush: important for mechanics demonstration 
• Lockable Doors
• Foldable bonnet holder for lockable bonnet in open state
• Filled black "hole" below headlights

First of all some background, some remarks about the problems of the stock version of the Porsche, so about the reasons for such a topic.

Spoiler

I built the stock Porsche two times following standard BI (only applied Blakbirds step-5 fix and Attikas 180 degree change of the change-over-chatches of the the paddle-shifter unit): First time the paddle-shifter works quite unreliable with some gearbox stalls but the geartrain itself works more or less ok, i.e. was able to move the car in all gears without loud grinding but quite high resistance in first gear. Second time vice versa, now gear switching works quite well but now the gearbox shows same behavior as reported by Appie (and some others) only in sequence 1,3,2,4 it works, but not in correct order 1,2,3,4…  BTW: I'am a very experienced builder so too low building skills can not be the reason ;-)

After that I throw away the stock Porsche and switched to the errata of @Didumos69 as contained in jb70s Porsche: Now all is working flawlessly, now I could easily push the car over the whole dinning table and it drives freely in all gears without grinding, with very low resistance…

Conclusion: despite its gorgeous looks the stock Porsche is crap (sorry) because its build is not deterministic: The design is so sensitive against smallest and most subtle changes (ie. Micrometers can make the difference) in connecting axle, gears etc… so even very experienced builders can not be sure to get a well working machine at the end. Paul Boratlko has reported the same for the build-sessions of himself and his wife. This means not, that it is impossible to build an somehow acceptable (not good but just acceptable!) working stock Porsche, but it means: first you need some luck for it and it does not only depend on your building skills and second you have at least to fix one serious error in the official BI: the step-5 fix of Blakbird (without this you will never get a working model). Both facts are not acceptable for a 299€ product (which on top is praised as ultimate from TLG herself) which should have passed the internal quality ensurance of TLG - but i assume this whole department was in a two year sabbatical during development of the 42056-set ;-). And it is also crap because the model fails in two of its main features (ie. more or less in all its features) when built as intended (by TLG) to be build: the gearbox and gear-shifting works unreliable (all the workarounds build in by TLG are a shame: the white clutch gear, the intended wrong gear sequence to reduce friction (first i could not believe it as TLG has confirmed this - really unbelievable), the 8^th gear mounted onto a friction pin for the gear-shifting – all this would be not necessary if the design would be well thought and made) and the complete front-axle is a deficit at all: way too weak for the heavy weight, bad geometry, huge bump-steer, too small steering lock and no ackerman (which is a nogo for a model of this size). So the only purpose of the stock Porsche can be: Display it onto your shelf but do not touch and move it (maybe this was the main goal by its designers, who knows ;-)

 

Luckiliy there are solutions for all problems of the stock Porsche: The first serious problem (gearbox and shifting) is completely fixed by the errata of @Didumos69 but the second serious one (front axle) is only fixed by his ultimate playable Porsche. But luckily again there is a Porsche out there which contains all these needed fixes and solutions (and some more) in one package which is available with full blown PDF-BI at rebrickable: @jb70 “Pimp up my Porsche”. BTW: with this package none of the above mentioned workarounds of TLG are necessary; they are completely thrown away.

I would recommend everyone who wants to build the Porsche, who wants to build a flawlessly and very well working Porsche: Do not waste time by building the stock Porsche but start with the “Pimp up my Porsche” by @jb70 – and do all your own MODing onto this base… ;-)

Well, here we go…

The base package

Go to rebrickable and get the BI for the “Pimp up my Porsche” MOD by @jb70 : http://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-8003/jb70/42056-pimp-up-my-porsche/#comments - The BI are free and also free from errors and flaws (there are only four very small exceptions, see below).

Remark: You will need only 179 very common and mostly cheap parts in addition to the 42056 set to build this Porsche by jb70 – the overall costs would be about 20 to 30€ when you need to buy all additional parts – the real costs strongly depend on your spare parts inventory ;-)

Just built this "Pimp up my Porsche" from jb70 - very enjoyable build, great instructions, incorporates all essential MODs you need to change the mediocre retail 42056 in a really great set, now also functionwise:

• stronger front suspension (retail is much too weak) with much better geometry with less bump steer und Ackerman steering - also with much better steering lock 
• outstanding gear indexer (= 90 degree limiter) so gear-switching is now 100% reliable, so NO gearbox stalling anymore
• fixed step-5 error in the BI and in addition much better gear-arrangement of the whole gearbox for frictionless spinning of the complete drivetrain in all gears - the car now runs absolute free and smooth when pushed over the table - even in 1st gear
• preventing from endless gear-sequence (ie. now you can’t switch from 4 to 1 or from 1 to 4
• corrected gear-sequence
• reinforced chassis so the chassis does not bend even without body 
• HoG (essential for playablity)
• fast and easy removeable body (essential for demonstrating all the internal goodies)

All fixes from the unofficial errata of Didumos69 are applied and in addition some important goodies of his ultimate playable Porsche - all that stuff compiled into great PDF-instructions, even for free!   This means all problems I described above are fixed, Many Thanks @Didumos69 , many thanks @jb70 !

Well, there are 4 small errors rsp. recommendations for changes within the BI of jb70:

1. Error in BI: The blue 2L pin at step 59 (page 60) is not needed

2. Error in design and BI: The front-calipers are mounted in a faulty manner: they will rub against the inner side of the rims which prevents the car from running smoothly when pushed along. Solution: use a thin 1x2 liftarm and an axle with towball (instead of a pin with towball) for connecting the steering links to the hub and then build the front calipers as shown in the stock BI (page 152, step 212) and Bob will be your uncle – see pic below:

3. Recommendation: I recommend to omit the pin-clutch of Didumos69 - This means replace at step 38 (page 32) the two blue pins with one axle 4L --> the Didumos-errata-based jb70-Porsche does not need this clutch because the gear-box works now 100% reliable and it never stalls... in contrary: the clutch has the disadvantage that it can chips in when not necessary cause of too low friction of the pins! Without this clutch all is working like a charm and the pistons just fly ;-) But of course it is not necessary to omit this clutch - but then you should ensure that you use two pins with really high friction!.

4. Recommendation: jb70s Porsche already contains the wonderful MOD of Hispabricks for a fast and easy removeable body – but this can be optimized a little bit: Just fix the seats completely at the body so not connection between seats and chassis remains. For that do not mount the LBG 2x4 liftarm in step 19 (page 7) and all parts attached to it. They are not needed anymore. Mount the seats in step 47 at page 173 as shown in the pic below - see yellow circle. Now the body is even faster removeable and completely independed from the chassis (Thanks to @DayWalker for this small but valuable MOD).

 

That’s all – apart from these small changes the BI of jb70 are errorfree: ready for a full and flawless working Porsche.

When finished jb70s Porsche you have already a Porsche with smooth and flawless working features and with great playability. If you want to go further you can easily apply the following MODs which add a lot of realism and even better operation.

Additional MODs on top of the “Pimp up my Porsche” base-package:

Dashboard gear-indicator and realistic reverse-mode behavior:

A well visible(!) gear indicator is IMO an essential feature for a sequential gear box.

The following MOD offers exactly this and the needed mechanic is fully invisible: the needed mechanic is completely hidden behind the black curved panels of the center console.

The stock behavior of the reverse mode is completely unrealistic because it allows to engage reverse regardless of the current active gear – IMO the requirements are as follows:

1. reverse gear has a high reduction-ratio (in this case the same as first gear)
2. engaging reverse (or neutral) mode is not possible if another gear than 1st is engaged, ie. it does NOT allow to shift from 4th (and also not from 3rd and 2nd) gear to neutral and back
3. in reverse mode you are prevented from switching gears - so in reverse-mode you HAVE JUST ONE possible gear-ratio (see 1)

This MOD implements exactly this. And it does it so that it is fully invisible and the needed mechanic is completely hidden behind the black curved panels of the center console.

Here is a pic which shows both MODs built into the jb70-Porsche – you see that you don’t see anything unless the blue indicator at the dashboard – which is good in this case ;-).

Here I have described both MODs in detail and also how to integrate into the jb70-Porsche:

Here can you find a a lot of pics of the internals and instruction hints how to integrate both MODs into the jb70-Porsche base: http://bricksafe.com/pages/Kumbbl/MODs/porsche-42056/gear-indicator-and-reverse-gear-mode

Here is an example pic of my bricksafe-folder so you can see how detailed the explanations are:

Kudos and many thanks to @DayWalker who has developed both of these MODs. I have only integrated them into the jb70-Porsche and have done only some very small improvements. Both MODs can be very easily integrated in jb70's Porsche implementation. The few needed changes are very obvious and easy to manage. But you have to take into account them from the beginning, ie. from page 1 of the BI of jb70. All integration changes have to be done between step 1 and 23 (pages between 1 and 17) – especially the gear indicator can not be integrated later one – there are essential changes at page 1 of the BI of jb70 which can’t be done in no way later on!

New paddle shifter unit with lighter operation and more realistic angled steering wheel

@Didumos69 has developed an improved paddle-shifter unit: Well, it’s a quite clever mechanism which allows slighty lighter operations. But its main advantage is the better look cause of the angled steering wheel and the almost (because of inside mounted) invisible rubber bands. So this new paddle-shifter shifts an already very good and 100% reliable stock shifter (but only with Didumos’ innovative 90 degree limiter and indexer which is part of the  jb70s package) to an almost perfect gearbox-shifter. Overall I rate it as very well designed and a nice addon which is really worth of building and integrating into the jb70-Porsche but IMHO it’s not a must have because the retails shifter contained in the jb70-Porsche works really well. Here are two pics of the new shifter module:

Anyway, here I have described in detail how to integrate into the jb70-Porsche:

 

Lockable doors and foldable bonnet holder:

@el Squatterhas developed a very clean and nifty MOD for lockable doors. They are dead simple to integrate into the jb70-Porsche without any side effects.

 

Myself has developed a very small but nevertheless usefull MOD – a foldable bonnet holder. The holder can be very easily locked in open state. I added this MOD because the opened bonnet with rear spoiler is the only way to get a glimpse of moving pistons when the body is mounted. But the bonnet+rear spoiler is too heavy for staying reliable open when the car is pushed around (because it is just hold by the friction of two pins). Therefore I added the following lockable holder. For locking the opened bonnet just pull the center joint a little bit backwards then it will be locked and the bonnet will stay opened. For closing just fully open the bonnet and the holder will automatically fold down when you close the bonnet.

 

Here I have described both MODs in detail:

 

Cosmetic: Filling the large black gap below the headlights

Several people have complained about the huge black hole below the head-lights. Me too. Therefore I have added a dead simple fix for it:

 

I really don’t understand why TLG has not applied this very cheap and also very obvious enhancement which make the model looking even more awesome.

Summary:

 

Overall I would rate this Porsche now as an excellent supercar with outstanding exterior and great and very well working functions which can easily compete with all of the supercar MOCs out there…

And most important: A successfull build doesn’t depend anymore on your luck but only on your building skills and your ability to follow exactly and carefully the provided BI (supplemented by some photos for integrating some MODs into the base package of jb70)

And If you want to give your Porsche the icing onto the cake I recommend you the wonderful stickers by Walter Spierenburg (see topic link below the pic) which really adds very much optical value – see pic below:

@Jim: I have used a pic from your original topic - i hope this is ok but your photos are so good i could not resist ;-) - here is the original topic for this wonderful stickers (really high quality and fast shipping - i'm really hooked.

Last but not least:

Many thanks and kudos to @Didumos69, @jb70, @DayWalkerand @el Squatter  which brought all these wonderful MODs to the table. I have only complied them into one - now full featured - model and integrated them into the great basis “Pimp up my Porsche” by jb70.

 

 

Edited June 6, 2017 by Kumbbl

[Jim]

I am not sure either (about the separate topic), but I am not against it. Maybe @Milan can chime in.

Using my picture is perfectly fine 

[Paknaloid]

@Kumbbl Thank you very much for putting this together - it is the ideal partner to the @jb70 instructions, and I look forward to continuing my build.  I've already fixed the calliper error and added @DayWalker's seat mod, both of which are perfect.  I should also say a special thanks for your lightning fast spot of my building error earlier - now resolved and the gears, shifting and drivetrain all work like a dream, smooth and secure.

Sorry for asking this again, but is your bonnet prop compatible with the front bonnet also?

 

 

[Didumos69]

Thank you very much @Kumbbl for putting this together. I have said it before, but you have taken @jb70's version to the next level, which makes this set even more valuable. However, your work would be even more valuable if you would collect all one needs to know in a single PDF that can be used as a side reference while building jb70's version (so there would be no need to make side jumps to the original posts in the mods and improvements thread), add a parts list with the parts you used extra compared to jb70's version and put everything on Rebrickable. I would not label it as 'The Porsche TLG should have made' though. I'm afraid what 'TLG should have made' is too much subject to personal taste. You could profile it as the ultimate accessories package for jb70's pimp-up version, a package which completes / continues the work started by others.

This may sound like a lot of work, but I think you have most of the text and images available already. If you decide to take this on, you could use this thread for simply presenting the final result (I would like to see some end-result images anyway, a video would be even better) and provide links to Rebrickable. I think it would also take away any doubt about having a separate topic for this.

Edited June 7, 2017 by Didumos69

[Jurss]

But, what we would do, if Lego made perfect Porsche, we could just build it, put in the shelf and forget. Now we had so much good time 

[Paknaloid]

Just now, Jurss said:

But, what we would do, if Lego made perfect Porsche, we could just build it, put in the shelf and forget. Now we had so much good time 

That's exactly how I feel. It's just a shame TLG charged such a premium price for a defective design.  But this part is fun and interesting.

[mocbuild101]

6 minutes ago, Jurss said:

But, what we would do, if Lego made perfect Porsche, we could just build it, put in the shelf and forget. Now we had so much good time 

I was going to say that!

But Lego still could have done it a bit better...

[Didumos69]

6 minutes ago, Jurss said:

But, what we would do, if Lego made perfect Porsche, we could just build it, put in the shelf and forget. Now we had so much good time 

1 minute ago, Paknaloid said:

That's exactly how I feel. It's just a shame TLG charged such a premium price for a defective design.  But this part is fun and interesting.

I feel the same way. I would probably not have ordered the Porsche immediately after release, if reviews had not revealed the flawed gearbox.

 

[Jim]

I am not sure this topic is going anywhere. I somehow feel it will just be a rant topic.

I will probably close this topic, so we can keep the discussion in the MOD topic. Feel free to copy the OP to the MOD topic.

[mocbuild101]

Just now, Jim said:

I somehow feel it will just be a rant topic.

It does seem like that... there is nothing else to do .

[Kumbbl]

49 minutes ago, Jim said:

I am not sure this topic is going anywhere. I somehow feel it will just be a rant topic.

I will probably close this topic, so we can keep the discussion in the MOD topic. Feel free to copy the OP to the MOD topic.

it was never meant to be rant topic but only a neutral and objective judgement of the stock Porsche and its flaws and a constructive showcase what is to do to bring the mechanics to the same level as the gorgeous look of the - the target audience were mainly people who just want a full featured and working Porsche but do not know how to modify or do not want to study 30 pages of a MOD-topic with several MODs which do not automatically fit together...  but never mind, feel free to do with the topic what you want to do...

[Bartybum]

Nah stuff that, Imma rant. For a set that was in development for two years, TLG underdelivered pretty damn hard.

[Aventador2004]

3 hours ago, Paknaloid said:

That's exactly how I feel. It's just a shame TLG charged such a premium price for a defective design.  But this part is fun and interesting.

And I imagine when i buy a Porsche (cheap as possible) I will make my own mod package.

52 minutes ago, Bartybum said:

Nah stuff that, Imma rant. For a set that was in development for two years, TLG underdelivered pretty damn hard.

You heard jim, no ranting!